Deliverance
by Lerry Hazel
Summary: Chandler wasn't going to lie to himself: he was running away... ATTENTION! Joey is not really in this story, but experience shows that the plot only works for Chandler/Joey fans.
1. foreword

…**before you read:**

_**Title: **"Deliverance"_

_**Genre: **Stream of consciousness: almost General, not really angsty._

_**Category**: "Friends" _

_**Disclaimer**__: Strange as it seems, "Friends" don't belong to me. The mentioned books are probably in public domain, but I don't try to claim them either. _

_**Summary:**_ _Just fooling around with Tulsa and 'should-have-been's_

_**Warning**: Not as much an AU as a bit of Stanislavsky approach (that is, "Me in given circumstances"), but the perception of the situation is far enough from canon to advise true "Friends" – or at least Mondler – fans to stay away. Also, personally I am fairly certain "affection" and "sexual attraction" are not necessarily the same thing, but I can't possibly stop you from seeing some slashy undertones in the story if you do. In other words, DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU AREN'T GONNA FREAK OUT ;-)._

_**Timeline:** Originally my plot required "Joey's big break" and Tulsa brought together at some point of time when Monica and Chandler were already living together, but not married yet. Now I got rid of all canon time-markers besides **Tulsa** itself, so hypothetically, it should fit into the Canon timeline. I just wouldn't drag anyone through what little I know about American divorce laws. _

_**Other Author's Notes:** I've never felt the need to explain why I chose these and those Canon facts and altered them so and so, and I'm not going to start now. Isn't bending the Canon your way the whole purpose of fanfiction, after all?_

_But, just to ease your possible bewilderment, I would like to make a few comments you are by no means obliged to read._

_1) I'm not a huge "Friends" fan. For a long time I only saw occasional episodes, mostly from the first five seasons, but that was enough to conclude I could sort of sympathize with Chandler. This summer I finally got the chance to get properly acquainted with the show, and I was absolutely appalled by the way the Chandler and Monica's marriage turned out. So I got the general idea for the story, but didn't think anyone would want to read it. Since then I have had to relive some of my similar experiences, so I've decided I want to finish the story anyway. And I've checked out some episodes I needed factual data from, but by now I'm not so much influenced by the show itself as by Cress' "If You're Gone", which is really good stuff when you're in the mood for something angsty. _

_2) Personally I think smoking is disgusting, but I also have firm ideas about self-distraction which I won't discuss here, but which roughly state telling a grown man off for smoking is insulting. _

_3) Yeah, I plain and simple googled "Statistical analysis". Don't come nagging me about how inaccurate it is, unless you actually have a degree in it :-). _

**STILL WANNA READ IT?** ;-P


	2. DELIVERANCE

**DELIVERANCE**

Chandler wasn't going to lie to himself: he _**was**_ running away.

It had been exactly twenty-four hours ago, - five day after his unexpected transfer to Tulsa and a sleepless night after Monica's abrupt decision to captain the Javu's staff instead, when Chandler sort of had an epiphany. He was heading to the office, even though technically he needed the day off to pack: partly because one more check-up on his already wrapped-up affaires, few more last-minute instructions to his replacement, an extra scrappy briefing or reading through some more jumbled reports on situation in Tulsa couldn't hurt, partly because he somehow had to break the news to his superiors, and mostly because he really didn't look forward to one more day filled with endless and pointless "talks" running in circles around the sole point of what an inconvenience he was.

As the half-empty train was dragging joltily across the city, Chandler contemplated trying to persuade the board of governors that no, just because his "better half" had chosen not to make it any easier for him, they were not going to get one more head of division whose mind was mostly back in New York, - versus letting out his embarrassed clown side that would certainly result in losing the job that wasn't worth it anyway – as his friends never failed to point out, even though none of them could actually say what his job was to save their life – or flat. And now there also was the falling-asleep-at-the-meeting incident for them to gloat over, never mind it was more like zoning out for ten minutes, as he had been fairly certain he had no say – or interest – in who was getting promoted. Of course, one probably couldn't expect a paleontologist, a cook, a masseuse, an invisible toiler of the world of fashion and a not-exactly-actor, who probably all thought a "candlestick" was, well, a candlestick, to grasp the challenge of turning a pile (literally) of candlestick charts into an on-line accessible, interactive, properly cross-referenced recourse in eighteen hours. Chandler belatedly shuddered at the sheer amount of rigorous work it had taken (who wouldn't curse the job after something like **this**?), but then couldn't help a tiny smile: they had pulled it through; hell, he wasn't occupying his position for nothing. And – he mentally paused as if he only just realised it (which was the case, kind of) – he wasn't put in charge of a corporate division for nothing: if anything, in spite, not because of falling asleep at the meeting. That he had over ten years of experience and steady way up to prove he was actually quite good at doing his irksome job.

And that's when it dawned upon him: He was _**supposed**_ to crave an inspiring job to love – but he actually liked his job for being automatic and insipid; that he had originally chosen to stick to numerals over anything captivating and creative, because being neat and indifferent, numbers left him free to invest emotions in what he truly loved – like good books and black-and-white movies; except, that one stolen time with Kathy at 3AM was about the only intelligent conversation he could remember in years of obligatorily killing his evenings in Central Perk, wasting money on bad coffee…

In the evening, back in squeaky-clean obsessively ordered Monicaland he had somehow landed himself into, he wondered how many other "assumptions of normality" he had been taking for granted. Well, now he had all the way from New York to Tulsa to contemplate his seemingly turbulent, but actually rather uneventful life.

* * *

><p>As a son of a female author of dubiously artistic "adult prose" who knew very little of what an average male below the age of consent might need and a male queen of a burlesque show who took long enough to find the balls to admit he had none, Chandler had always felt like an oddity: both at his highly-privileged school among respectable businessmen's offsprings, and at home, as an unfortunate hummock in the middle of the glorious battle-field his parents refused to leave long after their divorce was finalized. Therefore, once at college he had been genuinely surprised to find out he belonged: right beside Ross Geller with his dinosaur obsession, his embarrassingly fat sister and his hopeless crush on a neighbour girl well above his league to match Chandler's own embarrassing sense of embarrassed humor, grotesquely dysfunctional family and no social life whatsoever. And yes, Ross might have been an annoying geek who kept whining about his air humidifier filters, had undying faith in his non-existent musical talent and obviously set off to ship his newly-found friend with his mammoth sibling, whose impending presence somehow didn't fade away with her dimensions. But still, it was more than Chandler could ever hope for, so he clung to his relationship with the Gellers as his anchor in normality. Just as he had clung to his relationship with oh-my-god-Janice, because he couldn't bear the thought of "carrying on the Bing curse", - even though he actually barely remembered his father. Just like he finally slipped into the seemingly unavoidable sugar-coated romance with his-best-friend's-little-sister, because, since having had one lasting relationship was unbecoming for someone over thirty years old and being "scared of commitment" just unmanly, he supposed he could live with Monica. Frankly, he could just as well live without her; but he was determined to "maintain" Monica, and care for thrice-divorced but still hopelessly dinosaur- and Rachel-obsessed Ross, and tolerate shallow spoilt Rachel herself, as well as Phoebe, who, truth be told, was a bit on the uncomfortable side of weird; and to laugh good-naturedly at endless jokes at his expense: the price he was meant to be paying for not dying alone.<p>

But there was no way he was giving them his job too. Not after Monica didn't hesitate to choose hers over him. Not his last resort of welcoming anonymity.

True, his indiscernible office did remember its fair share of awkward situations as well, but generally there it was still possible to be one of a thousand faceless Bobs – not "our Chandler" dragging a trail of painful secrets a bunch of people he didn't remember inviting into his life knew by heart. His job was one stratum of Chandler's life safe from people-that-called-him-a-friend-since-he-was-Monica's-friend-as-well.

The other, hopefully, was his friendship with Joey.

* * *

><p>Chandler wasn't going to admit it aloud – ever – but Joey had been god-sent to keep him sane in the middle of the vicious circle he had metaphorically closed up with his own hands. Otherwise it was a really long chain of really lucky coincidences, and Chandler knew enough statistics to calculate the odds for that.<p>

There was no reason for Chandler to have a roommate in the first place. Privately he believed that helping him with a decent dwelling was the least his parents could have done after trapping him in a makeshift bedlam for the first quarter of his life and sending him off to a boarding school for the second. And they probably would have, but Monica somehow managed to put her hands on her grandmother's nice apartment, and suddenly it made sense for her brother to move across the hall, and well, Ross didn't have that many friends and the shitty hole did have two bedrooms.

When Ross decided to move in with Carol the sensible thing for Chandler to do was to find himself a nice studio near the office, but he was too busy freaking out about his illusory net of appropriate relationships dissolving in front of his very eyes, to the point he was ready to propose to Monica – or anyone, for the matter, - just to keep up. That's when Kip came in handy, but Chandler held no illusions about him: Kip had been lured at Number 19 by the prospect of Monica's company, ended up dating her, however briefly, and Chandler didn't feel guilty not to stick up for Kip when he was being zoned out, or insulted by not being invited to Kip's wedding – as he had never met Kip's new girlfriend and actually would have hard time remembering Kip's face.

Living with Eric would have been nothing but constant humiliation, but his porn-star sister and his bunch of top-model co-workers sounded too much like a Hollywood dream to turn him down. Mr. Heckles showing up and scaring the guy away was nothing short of a miracle.

Joey too proved capable of having enough sex for both of them, but he was just as casual, loud, and cheerful about it as about everything else, generally lacking the subtlety to aggravate Chandler's insecurities by dancing around them. Plus, Chandler soon recognized him as a fellow fugitive from "being just like your father". Safe behind his wall of crappy bohemian lifestyle from family plumbing business, crumbled house in Bronx, a wife, eight children and a mistress called Ronnie, Joey was OK with still being a penniless novice actor in his late twenties, and accepted any sign of affection (be it helping him rehearse his ridiculous lines or paying a ridiculously huge tuition fee for some tap dance class) matter-of-factly, lavishing his own affection like sunshine.

Joey had shaken Chandler's concept of "normal" to the core: apparently, for a friend of Peter Pan it was OK to proudly dig out happy thoughts, fly up and help fight off the pirates. They did much the same for Phoebe all the time, didn't they?

Well, of course the Gellers wouldn't think to pay for letting Phoebe stay the Flower Child they all claimed to love, but god, was it great to be good enough just once, to actually have the means to make a dream come true, even if in the end he was just passing a holed box for a perfect sheep.

Well, now his Little Prince has learned that roses grow in every garden: how long before he realizes that flesh is too heavy to reach the stars?..(_1_) Perhaps the Fox' approach was better than the Pilot's. Chandler (since he wasn't bothering with lying to himself anymore) sure as hell wouldn't be content with laughing bells echoing through night sky, as Joey's absence from his life left him constantly depressed and cranky, like sunshine-deprivation was known to.

Adding to his record of unforgivable offences was hardly the best way to show it, but eventually he would make Joey understand. Had to.

* * *

><p>The hotel offered smoking rooms with huge bathtubs, promising two things he had long given up trying back at home even behind closed doors, as he had always doubted the locked front door would stop "the Gang" from barging inside if they felt like it. Chandler didn't bother to unpack anything but the headshot, which Joey had messed up because of a sudden fit of laughter, to direct witty comments at and his old battered copy of "Movable feast", before curling in an armchair with a cup of tea and good old Hem. He lit a cigarette, took his first puff in a few years and closed his eyes with a blissful smile.<p>

He was still scared shitless of meeting his new subordinates; eventually he would have to deal with Monica and Co, once they realised he had **meant** he had no intention of flying to and fro every weekend, like a damn carrier pigeon; and (which was worse than the aforementioned two combined) he needed to mend the rift with Joey. And after that there probably were a few more aspects of his life to rethink.

But for now he had done it. He had broken free.

=END=

* * *

><p><em>(1)<em> … _and yes, I couldn't figure out the proper sequence of tenses to put this phrase in the past. _


End file.
